Back in Sydney after a stint in the states, Cariba Heine has to laugh about being fresh out of hotel quarantine and straight into lockdown.
Chatting with Now To Love via Zoom, she admits the time away from home has actually made her embrace her Australianisms even more.
Her accent is as Australian as ever, something she’s worked hard to maintain even when her acting career has taken her abroad.
“When I moved out of Australia, I sort of scrambled to hold on to my Australian identity,” she says.
Cariba Hiene opened up about maintaining her Australian identity.
(Credit: Now To Love)“I almost feel like I’ve gotten more Australian since then!”
While many Aussie stars drop their accents for international roles, Cariba’s is front and centre in the new Paramount+ show Everyone Is Doing Great.
She and Alexandra Park kept their Aussie accents for their roles as two Australian actresses working in the US (art really does imitate life).
It’s rare to hear Aussie accents in any US series, but Cariba says that’s not the only Aussie element that made it into the show.
“I’ve never seen an American series with such an English and Australian sense of humour.”
Aussie humour is a huge part of her and Alex’s characters’ friendship and it helps that the stars were close for years before filming started.
“It’s such a dream when you get work with your friend like that, and I really do think it translates on screen,” Cariba says.
Their friendship really shines through in a hilarious scene in episode two, where Alex and Cariba’s characters get drunk and complain about their exes.
What Aussie woman hasn’t experienced that kind of night with her best mate?
Cariba and Alex’s characters even groan about Americans being offended by Aussie humour, something Cariba says she definitely experienced while working in the US.
“Every single day in the states I’d say one thing that people would […] be really offended by,” she laughs.
And if she brings any Americanisms home with her when she returns to Australia, she can be sure her friends and family will point it out.
“You get teased pretty mercilessly either way you go with it!”
Of course, the show isn’t all drunken antics and Aussie jokes; it’s also a refreshingly honest look at the realities of the screen industry.
Cariba and Alex were friends for years before starring together in Everyone Is Doing Great.
(Credit: Instagram)Everyone Is Doing Great explores what happens when actors, well, aren’t doing great.
Calling the show an “anti-Entourage“, Cariba says people are finally going to find out what the “underbelly” of the industry really looks like.
“It’s equally as fun and funny as it is painful and hard to watch… I’ve never seen something more accurate about our industry,” she admits.
Without giving anything away, the show sees stars who used to dominate TV screens fighting to get roles or even make it to auditions.
There are drugs, alcohol and failed relationships aplenty, but the show’s clever humour keeps you hoping things will start to look up for the characters.
As for what happens to actors in the real world, Cariba says it’s not that different to what we see in the show.
“You’re not living in a mansion, and you quite literally don’t know when your next job is coming – if another job ever pops up!” she says of the life.
Fortunately, Cariba’s had a pretty successful career since she first hit the scene here in Australia as Rikki Chadwick on H2O: Just Add Water.
The iconic kids’ show about mermaids has followed Cariba throughout her career, especially now that she’s sporting curly blonde hair again, just as she did when she played Rikki.
While some stars shy away from talking about their earliest projects, Cariba has nothing but kind words for H2O and the impact Rikki had on so many Aussie kids.
Cariba (right) starred alongside Claire Holt (left) and Phoebe Tonkin (centre) in H2O: Just Add Water.
(Credit: Netflix)“It is so meaningful being part of a series where a character really helped people through childhood and teen years,” she says with a smile.
“But it does put a lot of pressure on you as well to maintain that sort of image!”
These days she’s more drawn to villains and other characters with serious flaws that viewers will have to look past in order to really love them.
As for her character on Everyone Is Doing Great, you’ll just have to watch the series to see which category it falls into.
Everyone Is Doing Great is streaming on Paramount+ from August 11.
